The Solicitors Regulation Authority first brought the case against Mr Adamantopolous in 2013, which was subsequently assessed by the SDT in a series of hearings last year. The SRA alleged that Mr Adamantopolous had improperly and dishonestly used €36,000 worth of firm money to pay for a portion of a £75,000 capital call made against investors in failed volume business Hammonds Direct in 2009. Mr Adamantopolous was a legacy Hammonds' partner and manager of the firm's Brussels office until its 2011 merger with legacy Squire Sanders & Dempsey.
According to the recently published SDT judgment on the matter, Mr Adamantopolous had billed clients for international holidays that he took with his family to destinations including Greece, Switzerland and the Dominican Republic. Mr Adamantopolous had defended charging clients for the holidays by arguing that he had continued working while on vacation, though the SDT found against him.
When Mr Adamantopolous left the firm, his partnership account was reportedly overdrawn by €79,000 because he had 'consistently taken more in drawings than was ultimately allocated to him after the end of a financial year.' In all the transactions it examined, the SDT concluded that Mr Adamantopolous had been 'dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people.'
'He had billed expenses that were not properly chargeable to clients, for his own benefit and more particularly he had failed to be transparent in his descriptions of the expenses; indeed, he had concealed their true nature,' the SDT judgment reads.
Mr Adamantopolous is now banned from working or having interest in any solicitors' practice or any other body recognised by the SRA.
Source: The Lawyer; Legal Cheek
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